U.S. President Joe Biden's 2024 election campaign is currently running on TikTok, despite raising national security concerns about the platform and banning it from federal devices.
Mr. Biden has no plans to personally join the platform, aides and other administration officials said.
The account will be fully run by the campaign team to reach an increasingly fragmented American electorate, especially as younger voters move away from traditional platforms.
The first post featured the president being asked questions about the Super Bowl and included a reference to the latest political conspiracy theory centered around music superstar Taylor Swift.
The FBI and Federal Communications Commission have both warned that TikTok owner ByteDance may share user data, including browsing history, location information and biometric identifiers, with China's authoritarian government.
In 2022, Biden will ban approximately 4 million federal employees from using TikTok on agency-owned devices, with limited exceptions for law enforcement, national security, and national security research purposes. did.
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The secretive and powerful Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States has been reviewing the app for years.
Campaign officials said they have taken advanced security measures and built in security protocols to ensure safety, but did not go into details about whether the measures protect election data or voters. Nor did it provide any information on whether it was intended to do so.
A law enacted by China in 2017 requires companies to provide the government with personal data related to the country's national security.
There is no evidence that TikTok has handed over such data, but the vast amount of user data it collects, like other social media companies, has sparked concerns.
The Biden campaign said the BidenHQ account will regularly post content to the platform.
The Biden campaign maintains a presence on Metas Threads, Instagram, Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and Truth Social, a platform backed by Republican front-runner Donald Trump.
The president's campaign has prioritized social media activity and smaller events featuring the president to reach targeted voters who may not be tuning in to traditional media.
The campaign and White House are also ramping up outreach to social media influencers they believe can amplify the president's message.